Nairobi — Critical operations within devolved units will remain in limbo as the standoff between Members of County Assemblies (MCAs) and Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) over remuneration review lingers.
This is after SRC opposed the proposal by MCAs to increase their salaries to 40 percent of a governor's gross salary, which stands at Sh924, 000, to raise their salary to Sh390,270 per month.
MCAs, currently earn about Sh144,375 which includes a basic salary of Sh86,625, a house allowance of Sh45,000, and a salary market adjustment of Sh12,750.
Appearing before the Senate Devolution Committee, SRC Chair Lynn Mengich told senators that parameters for job evaluation criteria stipulated in the Constitution and SRC Act 2011 is not based on the governor's salary to cap the pay for ward representatives.
"We use job evaluation as methodology to help us re-asses the relative work of the comparative work of jobs in the public service. We don't use a parameter that says because the president earn at this level, so we must use the same percentage to gauge others pay," said Mengich.
In June, the commission reviewed MCA's gross monthly pay was raised from Sh144,375 to Sh154,481, starting this month which is a 10,000 salary enhancement.
In the review that will be implemented in two phases, MCA will receive gross pay of Sh164,588 in the 2024-25 financial year which they are opposed calling the review an injustice.
"We re-evaluated all the roles of the MCA s, and called on our technical experts just to be sure nothing is missing. We were re-evaluated five times but it remained at groupD4 .That's the reason why their pay remained at the same cap," said SRC Vice Chair Amani Komora.
The County Assemblies Forum Secretary General Chege Mwaura called for the halting of the implementation of salary review for the year 2023-2024 until the stalemate is resolved.
"We are asking that the SRC review for the salaries be held until this committee resolve the issue at hand and a consensus is reached on the matter," Mwaura said.
The Association of Members of County Assemblies Secretary General Stanley Karanja has however poked holes on the job evaluation criteria by the salaries commission saying its erroneous.
"What was the source of your job evaluation information? When you have a wrong source of information even if you do it four times, it will still give the same results," Karanja said.
"The assembly has its own budget and it has gone up. We are not telling the SRC to adds up money, the money is within the assembly," he added.
More than 24 county assemblies across the country who have shut down operations to protest demand higher salaries.
"The net effect of the different pay structures that were used, there was no reduction. We are alive to the fact that you can't reduce the pay of an employee because we are guided by the Kenyan law," Komora said.
Nandi Senator Samson Cherargei questioned why SRC has failed to review the MCAs salary upwards yet counties had received additional revenue allocation in the passed Division of Revenue Allocation Act.
"The SRC is in the dark on what the role of MCA is and they are crumbling and shooting in the dark. We passed the appropriation bill and what the MCAs are requesting is not additional money, they just want to work around their budget," he said.
Mandera Senator added, "We need a meeting with SRC to look into calculations and how they conduct job evaluations. We don't understand how evaluation will show Job Group D to the very last minute."
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Nominated Senator Peris Tobiko faulted SRC emphasizing that the justification on job evaluation criteria by the commission was faulty and unfair and will only impede the oversight role of MCAs.
"SRC is mischievous because they are saying they reviewed the salaries according to parameters of performance and productivity. These people operate round the clock and not 8am-5pm like them, where is the fairness to MCAs,"said Tobiko.
This comes amidst calls by Senators for the disbandment of the commission for slashing salaries of Ward Reps and abolishing their allowances.
Cherargei sought a statement from the floor of the House questioning why ward representatives' salaries were reduced and their sitting allowances removed.
Senators insisted that the SRC was making remuneration decision for the sake of MCAs without understanding the welfare of MCAs.
